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Help! Tweaking My Lovan Rack for new Big A**ed Transrotor Turntable!

Folks, some input would be mighty appreciated.

I’ve been using a hand-me-down (though very nice!) Micro Seiki dd-40 turntable for a number of years and finally got the upgrade itch (it helps the upgrade itch when your cartridge is going on 30 years old, and sounding like it!).

I went down the rabbit hole and picked up a Transrotor Fat Bob S turntable, with an Acoustic Solid 12" arm and a Benz Micro Ebony cartridge. All with only about 30 hours of use at a great price. Yay!

Though I have considered getting rid of my old Lovan Classic rack for a new custom jobby, I’m pretty much spent out and I think I’ll have to make do for now, working with the Lovan.

The Fat Bob turntable is 55 lbs of solid aluminum and built like Thor’s hammer.

I figure this will finally get me to fill my Lovan stands for a bit more rigidity - probably with rice. The stand is the old 3 legged triangular shaped bass, which means the thin MDF shelves can feel like they sit sort of precariously on top. But the stand itself feels quite solid.

I want to incorporate a wood platform base, as many do, because I really love the look of a nice wood slab.

At first I thought maybe I’d have 3 spikes drilled in to the bottom corners of the wood base to directly couple it to the rest of the Lovan frame, vs resting it on the top mdf shelf. But I’m not sure that’s really necessary. And I’d like to incorporate some isolation as well, I think. So I’m thinking of just laying it on the top shelf, with something in between.

My first thought is to place a Symposium Segue shelf between the top of the Lovan shelf and the wood base.

Other than that...I’m flummoxed as to all the other choices...roller blocks? Symposium Fat Padz? Vibrapods? Herbie’s Tendersoft footers? Voo-Doo Isopods?  What should I put between the wood platform base and my Lovan shelf?

Any comments of suggestions on the direction I’m going?

Thanks!

(BTW, I’m an resolutely NOT a DIY/Handy-man type, so I’m not trying to go to heroic efforts, wishing this to be as painless as possible).
prof
prof OP
3,504 posts
 

Well I ended up with this:

Lovan rack:  Top shelf reinforced with steel plate, bonded by wall-damp material.  Rest of lovan racks damped with wall damp material, and wall damp material/sorbothane in the rack columns.  That really deadened ringing vibration just in the Lovan rack itself. 

On top of the Lovan shelf I have: Townshend isolation pods (spring) holding up a sandwich two MDF boards, 1/2" + 3/4", bonded together by wall damp material.  Then added a layer of steel (really deadened things), then the 2 1/2" Maple block on top of that, on which sits the Transrotor Turntable.

This means the actual shelf the turntable sits on is very dead and heavy, while also being very well isolated itself from floor-borne extraneous vibration.

I FINALLY hooked up the Turntable last night (with JE Audio Phone Stage) and took a spin of a bunch of records.

Holy moly!

Amazing.  High fidelity vinyl playback!  Super dark background, liquid presentation, spacious, clear...in some ways the best sound I've heard out of my system.  I'm continually astonished at how transformed every record, and recording, is on this system in terms of being able to hear into the mix every nuance so easily.   Now I really get what the vinyl guys have been saying :-)


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prof OP
3,504 posts
 
The thread lives?

I haven’t put pictures up as I don’t know where to host them yet.
mulveling's avatar
mulveling
2,154 posts
 
@prof 
That's awesome you got hooked up finally, and have superb sound! That's what it's all about. Personally I'd worry about making things too complex with multiple various isolators/platforms, and their interactions, on a less than stellar frame, but if it sounds good and you don't have feedback issues, then that is good. 

Still, in the future, consider something like an Adona rack! A good turntable deserves a rigid, substantial frame underneath it. Good isolation on top of a good frame should yield stellar results. 

I host most my images on imgur, or also you can easily post a Virtual System here on Audiogon! We'd all love to see what you've got. 
slaw's avatar
slaw
22,694 posts
 
I have some Townshend speaker platforms in my cart.
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